My Dear Friend,

One of the most unrecognized causes of trouble in Christians' lives and churches is, not atheists, leftists, wokists, or even demons, but lack of discipline.

Due to his (or her) excessive casualness, lack of spiritual desire, and disdain for training, the undisciplined Christian is tragically undeveloped spiritually - yet thinks all is well. But he is deceived. In reality, he is spiritually unfruitful, unfulfilled, unsatisfied, unsatisfiable, and unreliable - and a consistent cause of unpleasantness to others. Most importantly, being unfruitful, he is unpleasing and unusable to Jesus, a conspicuously barren branch on the otherwise lusciously fruitful Vine of Christ! He is, however, very useable to Satan.

Since an undisciplined Christian won't control himself, Satan gladly prompts, moves, and controls him - and he causes hindrances and failures in churches and ministries. In a crisis, the undisciplined Christian causes so much trouble Satan has little work to do to bring the "house" down - the family, church, ministry, or mission. The undisciplined Christian singlehandedly does it for him, just as surely as Samson destroyed the Philistine temple.

Though saved by grace, the undisciplined Christian cannot be a true disciple of Jesus. The English word "disciple" has the same root as the word "discipline." A disciple is one who voluntarily, without the constant coaxing of leaders, chooses to train himself to live daily in God's order for his whole being, spirit, soul, mind, and body. This Christian is a true disciple, a fully committed follower of Christ.

Pause and consider how beautifully disciplined Jesus' life must have been. All those meetings. All those sermons. All those prayer lines. All those demons to expose and expel. All those Pharisees and Sadducees and chief priests to outwit. All those crowds to handle. All those newly saved disciples to teach, counsel, exhort, and train. All their squabbles to settle. All their misunderstandings to correct. All the praying He desired and needed to maintain daily to draw His life and inspiration from His Father. What an amazingly busy life!

Clearly, Jesus must have lived in divine order - self-disciplined, habitual, diligent, and faithful; not in human disorder - undisciplined, indulgent, thoughtless, idle, or lazy. Every waking moment Jesus was in some way "about His Father's business" (see Luke 2:49). And we are called to be like Him. How? By learning to live like Him. Our disciplined Lord needs disciplined Christians to teach new converts His discipline so His worldwide kingdom work may go forward in a disciplined way.

Obviously, if we won't live in God's order, we can't train others to do so. History confirms this. No man or woman significantly used of God has ever been undisciplined. (Or if they were, they soon lost their power and ministries.) To the contrary, they all followed Christ's footsteps in self-discipline - then they followed His footsteps in dynamic, fruitful, life-changing ministry in the power of the Spirit. So, let's ask a question?

How do we train ourselves to live daily in God's order? To get our whole being into Jesus' diligent, steady, habitual, productive lifestyle? In our roots, spirit, mind, emotions, body, work or ministry, self-examination, and time?

• ROOTS. John the Baptist taught, to be free from the fruits of sin we must deal with the roots of sin (see Luke 3:9). So, we must ruthlessly rip up these three hidden roots that feed every undisciplined life. (1) Unbelief: if we don't believe the Bible's testimony that we will each stand before Jesus to give account of our lives, we feel no urge to live as He desires. So, we don't discipline ourselves. (2) Laziness: if we consistently choose to yield to our urges to relax, recline, and let up, we feed the deadly cancer of indolence. Thus, we won't rouse ourselves to self-discipline. (3) Rebellion: if we don't like the idea of someone, anyone, including godly elders, or even the Bible, telling us we must discipline ourselves to be spiritually fruitful, we won't submit and comply. Consequently, we remain saved by God's grace but ruined by rebellion.

• SPIRIT. Get your spirit in order, because it is the core and driver of your whole being. Every morning privately feed your spirit with God's life-nourishing Word in your hidden "secret place" (Psalm 91:1; Matthew 6:6). Water it with His Holy Spirit - who always refills and refreshes us when we not only soak in God's Word but also pour out our hearts in prayer and adoringly worship God in Spirit and truth. Draw additional spirit-strength from your church. Never miss a meeting! And draw from, and give to, fellow disciples. Regularly fellowship with them in the things of God. Take in other sources of spirit-nourishment, also. Read or listen to excellent, biblical, Christian-living articles, devotionals, and media sermons. Make them a regular part of your life.

• MIND. Get your mind in order, since all your words and actions spring from your conscious thoughts. Fill your thoughts with God's thoughts. Study God's Word, from Genesis to Revelation. Pore over different translations. Consult excellent commentaries. Examine Greek and Hebrew dictionaries as needed. Glean from Bible dictionaries and encyclopedias. Search for good Internet sites and posts. Use your brain! Stop, think, analyze, and pray for insight. Then draw your own biblically informed conclusions - always ready to yield your preconceived opinions and preferred doctrines the moment you realize a Bible text disproves them. Discipline your thoughts. "Cast down imaginations" and rumors (2 Corinthians 10:5), rather than blindly accepting them as facts. Recognize and dispatch alluring temptations. Turn bitter memories of injustices and offenses into intentional prayers by forgiving, loosing, and pleading mercies on your sin-bound antagonists. Don't let your mind wander. Don't waste time pondering unworthy or degrading subjects. Don't indulge strife or feed on pointless controversies. And remember, if you won't fill your mind, Satan will.

• EMOTIONS. Get your emotional life in order. Discipline your internally disruptive moods and emotions, realizing emotional turmoil fosters spiritual barrenness. Watch for great elation and, while remaining glad, return quickly to a sober calm and healthy thankfulness to God. Watch for depression, as it will cause your living to sink to the level of your mood. Watch for anger and quench it quickly. When you sense anxiety or fear, quickly cast it entirely on God's mighty shoulders through childlike, trusting prayer - and be sure you believe He hears, and thank Him for answering, before you cease (see Mark 11:24; Philippians 4:6-7; 1 John 5:14-15). Ask the Holy Spirit to help you detect envy - which often arises so subtly! - and do not resent others who seem more blessed than you. Confess your envy to God, reject it, give thanks for what God has given you, and then thank Him for blessing the very person you were envying - an acknowledgement He did not err by blessing them. Recognize when discontent presses in and press it out! Whatever your natural disadvantages, be satisfied enough with your situation as it is, because you already have the greatest Blessing - Jesus! "Be content with such things as you have, for he hath said, I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee" (Hebrews 13:5).

• BODY. Get your body in order. Discipline it daily, since body and soul are linked and each is affected by the other. Bodily self-control is a fruit of the Spirit. So, never think you cannot control your diet with the Spirit's help. Confidently ask His help, and then control when, what, and how much you eat, so you may be fit to walk with God with a clear mind and sensitive spirit undulled by overeating. Don't make your Christianity a slave to your stomach; make your stomach serve your soul, and Savior - and prosper! And avoid all intoxicants! There is no high like the Most High, so why seek another? Leisure also must not enslave you. Instead of living to rest, rest to live, recovering energy to work or minister again, more effectively and "heartily, as to the Lord" (Colossians 3:23). Sex, too, must be controlled. In our sex-crazed, sex-craving culture, dare to be different. Practice sex only in marriage, enjoying but never worshiping it like the pleasure-mad populace that does not know Christ. And get a reasonable amount of exercise regularly - walking, running, working out, playing tennis or other sports - since "physical training is of some value" (1 Timothy 4:8, NIV).

• WORK OR MINISTRY. Get your daily labors in order. Discipline your works, realizing Christ has you on earth "first" to build His kingdom (Matthew 6:33). He needs not only your faith but also your works - those kingdom-building "good works" which he predestined you to carry out in this life (Ephesians 2:10). Work in Jesus, for Jesus, and with Jesus, asking His wisdom, strength, and skill. Secular work is just as important as any other, so take it seriously, performing your tasks excellently and thoroughly. And faithfully - with diligent regularity, never failing to discharge your duties when bodily able to do so. And minister with inspired urgency. The hour is late, Christ's coming is near, the harvest is great, and "the laborers are few" (Matthew 9:37), so there is no time to waste. Two great kingdom crops are "white already unto harvest" (John 4:35), one salvation and the other discipleship. How will we preach the gospel with power if we are undisciplined? And how can we disciple others into God's order if we're not disciplining ourselves to walk in it? So, get about your work or ministry calling, daily and diligently!

• SELF-EXAMINATION. In our generation, self-examination is a forgotten discipline. But here are the biblical facts: if we don't examine ourselves now, Christ's examination will be very unpleasant. All the sin in our lives will be judged, either by us now or Christ at the Judgment Seat. If we are humble, honest, and thorough in confessing and forsaking sin as it arises, we need not dread meeting Jesus. He will not deal with us over any sin because we have already dealt with it, thanks to the Holy Spirit's marvelously faithful conviction and our childlike willingness to cooperate with it. But there's one problem: to examine ourselves, we must give up our most cherished pastime: examining others! Jesus addressed this better and more briefly than I can (see Matthew 7:1-5). Every time an act, omission, word, or lingering thought arises in any part of your life - spirit, mind, emotions, body, work or ministry - that conflicts with "his righteousness" (Matthew 6:33), immediately do three things. Confess it as "sin" to the Lord, turn from it, and turn to what His Word says about that issue. The goal of self-examination is quickly discerning and dispatching sin before it roots and ruins us.

• TIME. All the above disciplines require us to also discipline our most precious, fleeting, and irrecoverable commodity: time! While undisciplined Christians thoughtlessly waste time, disciplined Christians thoughtfully redeem it. "Walk in wisdom . . . redeeming the time" (Colossians 4:5).

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In closing, these are proven components of a disciplined Christian walk. You may safely use them to train yourself to live in God's order. As Jesus did. And be pleasing to Him - as His true disciple. And be fulfilled in Him - a fruitful branch in His fruitful Vine. And be, not a troublesome hindrance, but an incarnate blessing to your church, ministry, Christian friends, and everyone else you meet.

So, let the life-changing self-discipline begin! Or continue! Or increase!

Disciplining myself,

Dr. Greg Hinnant

GREG HINNANT MINISTRIES